Samia Halaby opens her show at Ayyam

The leading abstract painter Samia Halaby was in Dubai yesterday to open her huge solo exhibition in Ayyam Gallery, Alserkal Avenue.

The 77-year-old Palestinian who is based in New York was at the gallery to celebrate the launch of the second edition of her monograph, which contains almost all of her work from the last five decades.

The exhibition offers viewers an insight into her incredible oeuvre with a show of almost museum-like quality.

Halaby uses methodical systems in her abstract painting to convey movement or shapes and lines that are familiar to your eye although not instantly definable as an image. She uses materialist philosophy to underpin her work and interestingly, also uses different media.

Curated by art historian Maymanah Farhat, this comprehensive survey features over fifty works of art and manages to encompass the many creative experiments and breakthroughs that have resulted throughout the artist's career.

* Samia Halaby: Five Decades of Painting and Innovation runs until 30 April in Ayyam Gallery, Al Quoz.

* Full story will follow in The National's Arts & Life section

Blue Trap in a Railroad Station by Samia Halaby. Image courtesy Ayyam Gallery